Effects of position and shape of cutout on the axial buckling load of composite cylindrical panel

In this paper the effects of position and shape of cutout on the buckling load of composite cylindrical panel under compressive load is investigated. The laminated cylindrical panel with an arbitrary cutout shape is simulated by the spline finite strip method. The first order shear deformation theory and Sanders shell nonlinear theory are considered in this study. Using a linear buckling analysis, an eigenvalue problem is solved to obtain the buckling load of the panel under the compressive axial load. A comparison between the results obtained from the finite strip, finite element and analytical methods were made to show the validity of the results obtained in this study. Several case studies are presented to investigate the effects of some parameters such as shape and position of cutout, central angle of panel, ply sequence of the composite layers and boundary condition of the panel on its buckling load. The results show that the position and shape of cutout have considerable effects on the buckling load of the panel. The buckling load of the panel reaches its minimum when the cutout center has eccentricity from the loading direction. The results also show that the buckling load with quasi-isotropic configuration is greater than those of cross-ply and angle-ply.